New Organizational Designs: Information Aspects (Contemporary Studies in Information Management, Policies, and Services)

The organizational world today has been characterized in various terms - turmoil, chaos, the age of paradox and unreason. Common to all these characterizations is that the conventional wisdom fails in responding to novel challenges triggered by the pervasive and radical change of organizations. Information, knowledge, information worker and information technology are at the epicenter of these changes and surprises. This book explores new organizational designs, such as, the network and virtual organization from the information perspective. In addition, proposed is a model of the nontraditional organization in which information work evolves around teams that directly serve customers. This model was put on a test, and elements of the nontraditional organization were identified in firms that have been around for quite some time - the public accounting industry, and specifically its technologically most advanced segment. The book aims at transferring experience and facilitating interest for methods of organizing suitable for the information age.